Sunday CoronaBuzz, January 9, 2022: 31 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Sunday CoronaBuzz, January 9, 2022: 31 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please get a booster shot. Please wear a mask when you’re inside away from home. Much love.

NEW RESOURCES – AREA-SPECIFIC

Global News: Thousands of rapid test results already reported to made-in-Sask. online database. “A University of Saskatchewan student is hoping his new online tool can help close the COVID-19 data gap arising from increasingly limited access to official PCR testing.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

NBC Think: Covid vaccine and treatment misinformation is medical malpractice. It should be punished.. “From making false claims about vaccines to offering to sign medically unnecessary mask exemptions in exchange for payment, these ‘disinformation doctors’ are amplifying lies and often profiting from a cottage industry of social media posts, websites, live and virtual conferences and podcasts. In the process, they are weaponizing their white coats and putting patients, the public and their profession at risk.”

ACTIVISM / PROTESTS

Reuters/dpa: Coronavirus: Anti-vaccination protesters tell France’s Emmanuel Macron: ‘We’ll p*** you off’. “Anti-vaccine protesters rallied in cities across France on Saturday, denouncing President Emmanuel Macron’s intent to ‘p*** off’ people refusing Covid-19 vaccines by tightening curbs on their civil liberties. Macron said this week he wanted to irritate unvaccinated people by making their lives so complicated they would end up getting jabbed. Unvaccinated people were irresponsible and unworthy of being considered citizens, he added.”

BBC: Covid: Thousands protest in France against proposed new vaccine pass. “French authorities say more than 105,000 people have taken part in protests across the country against the introduction of a new coronavirus pass. A new draft law would in effect ban unvaccinated people from public life.”

HEALTH CARE – CAPACITY

WBAY: HSHS treating record number of COVID-19 patients at hospitals–majority unvaccinated. “A record number of patients are hospitalized and being treated for COVID-19 at the Hospital Sisters Health System. HSHS called it an ‘unfortunate milestone.’ They’re treating 303 patients, up from the previous high of 293 patients in November 2020, before the vaccination was available.”

CBC: Record high number of Ontarians in hospital with COVID-19 as Omicron wave continues. “Ontario reported a pandemic high of 2,472 people with COVID-19 in hospital on Friday, as the number of admissions to intensive care increased again. The previous high of 2,360 hospitalizations came on April 20, 2021, during the height of the third wave.”

CTV News: Laurentians hospitals in critical situation, transferring COVID-19 negative patients to long-term care homes. “Citing a critical situation in Laurentians area hospitals, certain patients, who have tested negative for COVID-19, are being transferred to long-term care homes (CHSLDs) in the region. Laurentians health and social services centre spokesperson Hugo Morissette said staff are being forced to pivot on a daily basis as the epidemiological situation remains distressing.”

Philadelphia Inquirer: COVID-19 surge has overwhelmed some Pa. hospitals — and now their workers are getting sick, too. “In the last week, the unprecedented number of infections has sidelined teachers, bus drivers, trash collectors, and others in significant numbers, in some cases disrupting services and schools. The omicron variant is more transmissible and can evade vaccine protection; as health-care workers also catch the fast-spreading virus, it has added a new challenge for hospitals already strained by the worsening surge.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

KLFY: Texas couple charged $3,973 for COVID-19 testing: ‘Makes me sick to my stomach’. “Before flying to Peru to hike the Inca trail, Suli Luque and her husband went to get tested for COVID-19. They needed to show proof of negative test results to be let into the country…. Austin Emergency Center claimed the visit for their COVID-19 tests cost $3,973 altogether, and their insurance company said it was the couple’s responsibility to pay it.”

Reuters: FedEx warns of shipment delays as Omicron leads to staffing shortage. “FedEx Corp warned on Friday that rising cases of Omicron variant has caused staff shortage and delay in shipments transported on aircraft.”

UNITED STATES / UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

Associated Press: US, Japan agree to keep troops on base to curb COVID spread. “The U.S. and Japan on Sunday agreed to keep American troops within their bases as worries grew about a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the country. The restrictions starting Monday will last 14 days, confining U.S. military personnel to base facilities except for ‘essential activities,’ a statement from the U.S. Forces in Japan said. The Japanese Foreign Ministry released the same statement.”

WORLD/COUNTRY GOVERNMENT

Loop Jamaica: Jamaica surpasses 100,000 COVID cases; record 1,593 new ones, 6 deaths. “The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Jamaica has surpassed 100,000, with 1,593 new cases recorded over 24 hours up to Friday afternoon. This is the third time this week that Jamaica’s coronavirus infections hit a new record for a one-day period since the pandemic began locally.”

Loop Jamaica: Jamaica still unable to test for COVID-19 variants. “In October of last year, the island acquired a genome sequencer and training of personnel to use the machine was scheduled to begin in order to test for variants of the novel coronavirus by last December. However, the training was pushed back until January 10, and that timeline is also not going to be met in terms of the stated goal.”

Reuters: Restrictions imposed in several states in India as Covid-19 cases rise. ” India reported 159,632 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly in the country, nudging several state governments to impose fresh restrictions.”

New York Daily News: Vaccine appointments multiply after Quebec requires shots for weed, alcohol stores. “They’re going shots for shots. First-dose vaccine appointments quadrupled in Quebec after the Canadian province required vaccine passports to buy alcohol and marijuana. Quebec announced the new rules Thursday, when there were an average of 1,500 first dose appointments, the Montreal Gazette reported.”

Associated Press: Navajo Nation reports 220 new COVID-19 cases, but no deaths. “The Navajo Nation has reported 220 new confirmed COVID-19 cases, but no additional deaths related to the virus. Tribal officials said the number of confirmed cases on the vast reservation since the pandemic began now total 42,887 as of Saturday including 45 delayed reported cases.”

STATES / STATE GOVERNMENT

Chattanooga Times Free Press: Tennessee launches program to help COVID-related mortgage delinquencies. “Tennessee homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgages, property taxes or home insurance due to the COVID-19 pandemic are getting a new economic lifeline this week. The Tennessee Housing Development Agency is launching a new federally-funded program Monday that will pay up to $40,000 for each household that has suffered from the ongoing pandemic and is delinquent in housing-related bills.”

WABI: Maine CDC director says to focus on COVID hospitalization numbers. “Every day the Maine CDC releases loads of data and numbers to the public that help them track the severity of COVID-19 in our state. It is no surprise that some of these numbers are more important than others. This week Dr. Nirav Shah of the Maine CDC offered a little guidance to the public about what numbers they should put more focus on.”

Associated Press: Vermont to provide COVID rapid tests to child care centers. “The state of Vermont is going to be providing free rapid COVID-19 tests to the state’s regulated child-care centers. The ‘Tests for Tots’ program, which was announced Friday, is designed to allow the centers to test children and staff when a positive COVID-19 case is detected at their program.”

WBUR (Massachusetts): State issues COVID-19 booster mandate for nursing home workers. “More nursing home workers will now be forced to roll up their sleeves and get a COVID-19 booster — or risk losing their jobs. That’s thanks to a statewide booster mandate for all eligible nursing home staff handed down by the state’s Department of Public Health.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Associated Press: School bus service in 2 NC cities suspended due to driver COVID-19 cases. “The News & Record of Greensboro reports that Guilford County Schools said Friday that 76 of the district’s drivers are out of work with the virus. Superintendent Sharon Contreras said those absences come on top of the district’s pre-existing driver shortage.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

KTVI: Missouri cancer surgery delayed over COVID strain at hospitals. “Scott Mueller said his wife April was diagnosed with appendix and colon cancer in December of 2021. She was supposed to have a colonoscopy and colon surgery in a couple of weeks at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Peters, part of the BJC Healthcare system. Mueller got the news Wednesday that both procedures would likely be postponed.”

SupChina: Xi’an woman in quarantine begs for period products in viral video, gets bashed by men for being ‘dramatic’. “Are period products necessities or luxuries? Should women be blamed if they are trapped in a quarantine facility without sanitary pads because they should be keeping track of their menstruation cycles? A COVID-19 lockdown and viral video have launched a debate on Chinese social media.” To anyone who thinks that menstrual cycles are some kind of events of inexorable timing and can be planned for, I offer this study from October 2021 on how pandemic stress disrupted menstrual cycles: https://www.verywellmind.com/pandemic-stress-caused-irregular-menstrual-cycles-study-finds-5204326 .

INDIVIDUALS – DEATHS

Iran Human Rights Monitor: Jailed Iranian poet Baktash Abtin dies due to lack of timely medical care for Covid-19. “Baktash Abtin, a member of Iran’s Writer’s Association died today in a Tehran hospital after catching COVID-19 in Evin Prison. Baktash Abtin, 48, was put into an induced coma in a Tehran hospital after being rushed there from Evin Prison on December 14 with severe symptoms of COVID-19.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

Hindustan Times: College students in Pune face challenges amidst rising Covid cases, restrictions. “Amid rising Covid-19 cases in the city, college-going students are facing multiple challenges. While offline classes have stopped, hostel, food and commuting all is getting tougher for many.”

HEALTH

CNET: The pandemic changed health care, and there’s no going back. “Video-calls-as-doctor’s-visit wasn’t a tool created because of COVID-19, but the pandemic has transformed it from an obscure practice to the new way to do health care. Importantly, policy changes made during the pandemic helped knock down some barriers for telemedicine access, and helped providers get paid for it.”

CNN: People desperate for Covid tests are turning to resellers online. “The emrgence of Covid test resales comes as frustrated Americans struggle to get tested and face long lines amid an increased demand following holiday travel and gatherings. Amazon, CVS Health and Walgreens are limiting the number of at-home Covid kits customers can purchase. Walmart recently hiked the prices for some of its rapid Covid tests from $14 to $20 for two. Experts say reselling kits in small numbers and without a large markup price is not illegal — nor is purchasing these products — but there are risks, for both buyers and sellers.”

RESEARCH

Cyprus Mail: Coronavirus: Cyprus’ Deltacron could just be contamination, Imperial College virologist says. “A researcher at Imperial College in London, which has driven much of the UK’s response to the Covid pandemic, says the ‘Deltacron’ variant Cyprus may have discovered ‘looks to be quite clearly contamination’.”

PsyPost: CEO narcissism linked to heightened workplace uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “New research provides evidence that narcissistic business leaders can have a detrimental impact on the workplace by triggering a sense of uncertainty among middle management. The findings have been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

NDTV: 3 Arrested For Celebrating Pet Dog’s Birthday Amid Covid Norms In Gujarat. “Chirag Patel and his brother Urvish Patel, both residents of Krishnagar in Ahmedabad city, had thrown a big party on the birthday of their pet dog, Abby, an Indian Spitz, along with their friend, Divyesh Mehariya, a police official said.”

7 San Diego: Pop-Up COVID Testing Sites May Be Rife for Identity Theft, Experts Say. “Pop-up testing sites have cropped up on street corners, in parking lots and on shopping properties across the country, but health and legal experts say many of these are unregulated and could be rife for nefarious activities like identity theft. In the last few weeks, legislators and attorneys general in several states including Illinois, Maryland, California, Texas and Pennsylvania have said they will be investigating and introducing regulatory legislation overseeing these operations.”

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January 10, 2022 at 12:22AM
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UP Michigan, Making Media, Formatting Google Sheets, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 9, 2022

UP Michigan, Making Media, Formatting Google Sheets, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 9, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Upper Michigan Source: NMU archives launches UP Link. “In October, the Central UP and Northern Michigan University archives sought donated photos and documents to upload on their digital archive, UP Link. While it will take some time until those donated documents are available, UP Link is officially live.”

EVENTS

EFF: How to Make Every Media With Free & Open-Source Software. “‘How to Make Every Media With Free & Open-Source Software’ is an ever-evolving reference guide for creating in any digital medium with free and open-source tools. We’ll start at development & podcasting and work our way through making films, games, and VR experiences, covering each medium briefly and then zooming in wherever the audience is most interested. We’ll then open up for the crowd-sourcing of more open-source tools (as we’ve surely missed some), and questions from the audience on how they can get started, moving, or published in their current focus media.” This is not an EFF event, but an Electronic Frontier Alliance-affiliated event.

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 9 Best Google Sheets Formatting Tips for Creating Professional-Looking Spreadsheets. “There are so many ways to make Google Sheets look beautiful to impress with your data visuals. The majority of spreadsheet apps focus on the computation part, leaving the data visualization and formatting to the user. Therefore, if you don’t format your spreadsheet carefully, the audience may find it boring, since plain and simple data is not interesting. The same goes for Google Sheets.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Atlas Obscura: Welcome to the Spanish Village Saved by Art—And Nearly Destroyed by Fire. “There was the table-sized mosaic lizard scurrying across the wall near the village church; the three white skeletons lazing on a rooftop; the lamp post, whimsically canted because its base rests on an orange; and the giant pencil drawing a line down the side of a village house. Genalguacil, once a dying rural village, had been reborn in the 21st century as an enchanting open-air gallery of fantastical and surreal public art. Now, as the destructive and deadly fire loomed, so did the question: How to safeguard the art of a town’s museum when the town is the museum?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Sonos wins major patent infringement victory against Google. “The US International Trade Commission has ruled that Google is in violation of five Sonos patents relating to smart speakers (via The New York Times). The decision affirms a judge’s ruling in August, and it’s the kind of decision that could theoretically force Google to stop importing products using the infringing technology. However, it’s not yet clear whether any specific Google products will necessarily disappear from shelves, and for now it seems unlikely that will happen at all.”

CNET: Privacy myths busted: Protecting your mobile privacy is even harder than you think. “With increasingly invasive digital surveillance from advertisers and law enforcement over the past few years, securing your mobile phone from privacy threats in 2022 should be a key resolution. But don’t stop short. Changing a few settings in your phone and apps isn’t enough. To get the most privacy, the key ingredient to add is a suite of encrypted apps.”

Techdirt: Court Orders Twitter Reveal Anonymous Tweeter Over Sketchy Copyright Claim, Because That Tweeter Won’t Show Up In Court. “Back in November we wrote about a very bizarre attempt to abuse copyright law to uncover who was behind a Twitter account, @CallMeMoneyBags. That account tweeted out various things mocking and shaming various extremely wealthy people, including billionaire Brian Sheth, a private equity bro. Some of the tweets in the fall of 2020 lightly mocked Sheth, including suggesting potential infidelity. The images themselves appeared to be social media-type photos of young women (or possibly just one young woman).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Sydney Morning Herald: Removalists were more focused on shifting my Google review than shifting my stuff. “This is why the reality doesn’t match the website, but the reviews are still universally glowing: they just buy off the bad ones. Having scaled their operations up, this – this putting out Google review fires – is where they have chosen to put their most focused company energy. Instead of ensuring that every subcontractor they put out on the road is up to the job, they are doggedly retro-fitting customer feedback. They are attacking the problem after it’s happened.”

Georgia Public Radio: Scientists vacuum zoo animals’ DNA out of the air. “A key part of protecting endangered species is figuring out where they’re living. Now researchers say they have found a powerful new tool that could help: vacuuming DNA out of the air. ‘This is a bit of a crazy idea,’ admits Elizabeth Clare, a molecular ecologist at York University in Toronto, Canada. ‘We are literally sucking DNA out of the sky.’ But it works. Clare’s group was one of two to publish papers in the journal Current Biology Thursday showing that dozens of animal species could be detected by simply sampling the air.”

The Conversation: How social media can crush your self-esteem. “As a PhD student in psychology, I am studying incels — men who perceive the rejection of women as the cause of their involuntary celibacy. I believe that social comparison, which plays as much a role in these marginal groups as it does in the general population, affects our general well-being in the age of social media.”

University of Texas at Austin: Citizen Science, Supercomputers and AI. “Citizen scientists have helped researchers discover new types of galaxies, design drugs to fight COVID-19, and map the bird world. The term describes a range of ways that the public can meaningfully contribute to scientific and engineering research, as well as environmental monitoring.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

The Gazette: A Colorado ‘fusioneer’ invented a painting robot and an inspiring way of life. “Don’t bother trying to understand it all. Just take it in. The stacks of notebooks with pages of scribbles and detailed takeaways from years of art classes and museum visits. The piles of outlines that, to the untrained eye, look like complicated blueprints drawn by an architect. The many, many books, ranging from a Michelangelo biography to one titled ‘Self-Organization of Biological Systems.’ The flow charts on whiteboards. The endless lines of code on a computer. The machine shop in the back and the paintings neatly hanging on the wall. And the robot holding a paintbrush.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 9, 2022 at 09:53PM
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Saturday CoronaBuzz, January 8, 2022: 37 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Saturday CoronaBuzz, January 8, 2022: 37 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please get a booster shot. Please wear a mask when you’re inside away from home. Much love.

UPDATES

CNN: Partying passengers stuck in Mexico after airlines decline to fly them home. “Some members of a rowdy group shown dancing, drinking and vaping maskless aboard a flight to Cancun find themselves stranded in Mexico after their return flight to Canada was scrubbed and other airlines have declined to fly them home.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Daily Beast: QAnon Star Who Said Only ‘Idiots’ Get Vax Dies of COVID. “Cirsten Weldon had amassed tens of thousands of followers across right-wing social media networks by promoting the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy under the screenname ‘CirstenW.’ She was prominent enough to become a sort of QAnon interpreter for comedian conspiracy theorist Roseanne Barr, and started recording videos about QAnon with her.”

Associated Press: FACT FOCUS: Unfounded theory used to dismiss COVID measures. “An unfounded theory taking root online suggests millions of people have been ‘hypnotized’ into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, including steps to combat it such as testing and vaccination.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Associated Press: Omicron explosion spurs nationwide breakdown of services. “Ambulances in Kansas speed toward hospitals then suddenly change direction because hospitals are full. Employee shortages in New York City cause delays in trash and subway services and diminish the ranks of firefighters and emergency workers. Airport officials shut down security checkpoints at the biggest terminal in Phoenix and schools across the nation struggle to find teachers for their classrooms. The current explosion of omicron-fueled coronavirus infections in the U.S. is causing a breakdown in basic functions and services — the latest illustration of how COVID-19 keeps upending life more than two years into the pandemic.”

ACTIVISM / PROTESTS

New Zealand Herald: Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: National Party MP Harete Hipango attends second anti-lockdown and mandate protest. “Whanganui list MP Harete Hipango has posted pictures of herself on Facebook, at a rally in her electorate. But the post has been deleted after being contacted by her party’s leader Christopher Luxon. She wrote about freedom and choice in her post and criticised the label anti-vaxers.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Des Moines Register: Photos: Respiratory Therapists on the COVID-19 front lines. There’s not really an excerpt so I can’t give you one. It’s a collection of 47 photos, mostly following two specific health care professionals as they work.

NPR: Short-staffed and COVID-battered, U.S. hospitals are hiring more foreign nurses. “Billings Clinic is just one of scores of hospitals across the U.S. looking abroad to ease a shortage of nurses worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. The national demand is so great that it has created a backlog of health care professionals awaiting clearance to work in the U.S. More than 5,000 international nurses are awaiting final visa approval, the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment reported in September.”

Austin American-Statesman: The number of Texans in hospitals for COVID-19 has increased by more than 50% in the past week. “Health officials on Friday recorded 9,216 people in the hospital for COVID-19 statewide, more than a 50% increase in the past week. The summer surge peaked at 13,932 patients on Aug. 26, 2021. The pandemic high was in January, when 14,218 Texans were hospitalized.”

HEALTH CARE – PEDIATRICS

BuzzFeed News: The CDC Is Warning That Child Hospitalization Rates Are Breaking Pandemic Records. “CDC Director Rochelle Walensky warned on Friday that pediatric hospitals are seeing record numbers of children with COVID-19, as the Omicron variant surges nationwide.”

New York Times: Covid may raise the risk of diabetes in children, C.D.C. researchers reported.. “Children who have recovered from Covid-19 appear to be at significantly increased risk of developing Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday.”

HEALTH CARE – CAPACITY

The Atlantic: Hospitals Are in Serious Trouble. “Here, then, is the most important difference about this surge: It comes on the back of all the prior ones. COVID’s burden is additive. It isn’t reflected just in the number of occupied hospital beds, but also in the faltering resolve and thinning ranks of the people who attend those beds.”

WTKR: Sentara postpones non-emergent surgeries, procedures as COVID-19 hospitalizations reach record highs. “Sentara Healthcare announce Friday that starting Monday, Jan. 10, it is postponing all hospital-based non-emergent surgeries, procedures and diagnostic testing due to the surge in COVID-19 cases across the U.S., saying its team members are ‘stretched to their capacity.'”

WHAM: Rochester-area hospitals make unusual moves in wake of latest COVID surge. “The hospital says health care workers willing to pick up extra shifts and overtime are making up the difference. And next week, the hospital will attempt something it’s never done. Two dozen office workers will temporarily replace nurses doing clerical work so they can be used to provide much-needed patient care.”

New York Times: More Patients, Fewer Workers: Omicron Pushes New York Hospitals to Brink. “At Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, the intensive care unit is full, mainly with Covid patients. In a scene reminiscent of spring 2020, patient beds have been set up in the hallway. But on Wednesday, when Interfaith asked city officials to divert ambulances to other hospitals, the request was granted for only two hours, the hospital’s top executive said. Emergency rooms at neighboring hospitals were also overflowing, or precariously understaffed.”

Associated Press: Western Michigan hospital turns to heated tent to ease COVID-19 crush. “A hospital in Western Michigan is using a heated tent as extra emergency space due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. The tent at Mercy Health Muskegon was set up a few weeks ago but put into service Thursday, WOOD-TV reported.”

EVENTS / CANCELLATIONS

Associated Press: CES gadget show turnout falls more than 75% thanks to COVID. “The Consumer Technology Association said on the show’s closing day that more than 40,000 people attended the multi-day event on the Las Vegas Strip. That’s less than a quarter of the more than 170,000 the CTA said were there for its 2020 convention.”

INSTITUTIONS

Stuff New Zealand: Documenting the pandemic – how Archives NZ and the National Library are keeping tabs. “For millennia humans have documented their time in unusual and humorous ways that people before or after didn’t understand. During the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, people shared cartoons and jokes making light of a terrible situation, many of which don’t make any sense today. Things are no different in the 21st century, but now technology is revolutionising the way we communicate.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

CNET: Amazon reduces COVID-19 isolation period for US workers. “Amazon is cutting down the amount of time that US workers have to isolate if they test positive for COVID-19, the company said in a Friday memo sent to employees. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the news, which an Amazon representative confirmed to CNET.”

WORLD/COUNTRY GOVERNMENT

Xinhua: Mauritania tightens restrictions amid rising COVID-19 cases. “The Ministerial Committee in charge of monitoring the development of COVID-19 in Mauritania on Friday tightened restrictions amid rising COVID-19 cases. The committee banned ‘all public gatherings’ and ordered the ‘closure of theatres.'”

Buenos Aires Times: Argentina surpasses 100,000 Covid-19 infections in a day. “Argentina on Thursday surpassed 100,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in a single day for the first time, breaking its record high since the start of the pandemic for the third day running. The country, which since the end of 2021 has been facing a dizzying rise in coronavirus infections, is now one of the countries in Latin America where the disease is progressing most rapidly.”

Reuters: China warns hospitals against rejecting patients over COVID curbs as cases decline. “China reported fewer COVID cases on Friday as several cities have curbed movements, while a top official warned hospitals not to turn away patients after a woman’s miscarriage during a lockdown in the city of Xian sparked outrage. China reported 116 domestically transmitted infections with confirmed clinical symptoms for Thursday, mostly in Xian and the province of Henan, down from 132 a day earlier, official data showed on Friday.”

ANI: COVID-19: Non-essential shops to be opened on odd-even basis in Delhi. “Amid the surge in COVID-19 cases in the national capital, the Delhi government on Friday said that shops dealing in non-essential goods will only be allowed to open on an odd-even basis between 10 am to 8 pm.”

AFP: World tops 2mn new daily COVID-19 cases. ” The world recorded more than two million daily coronavirus cases on average between January 1 and 7 with figures doubling in 10 days, an AFP tally showed on Saturday. An average of 2,106,118 new daily infections were reported over the seven-day period, shortly after the one million case threshold was passed in the week of December 23-29, 2021.”

STATES / STATE GOVERNMENT

California Governor: Governor Newsom Activates National Guard to Bolster State’s COVID-19 Testing Capacity. “Governor Gavin Newsom today announced that he has activated the California National Guard to support local communities with additional testing facilities and capacity amid the national surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

NBC News: Covid plagues mass transit, leading to staff shortages, service disruptions. “The start of a new year has done little to slow the crippling effects of the pandemic weighing on U.S. public transit systems battling reduced services, Covid-related staffing shortages and slumping ridership. Cities such as Portland, Oregon, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., are reducing mass transit services as their employees contract the coronavirus and are unable to work.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

ABC 7: Texas teacher accused of locking son in car’s trunk to avoid exposure to COVID-19. “A Houston-area teacher allegedly locked her 13-year-old son in the trunk of her moving car as she drove him to a COVID-19 testing site because he had already tested positive and she didn’t want to be exposed, authorities say. Police issued an arrest warrant for the teacher, 41-year-old Sarah Beam, for felony endangering a child after investigating the incident.”

Associated Press: Georgia woman gets prison time for COVID relief fraud. “Federal prosecutors say 49-year-old Hunter VanPelt of Roswell submitted six false loan applications to the Paycheck Protection Program from April to June 2020. She requested a total of more than $7.9 million and received more than $6 million, prosecutors said in a news release.”

The Wire India: Bihar: FIR Against Octagenarian Who Took 12 Doses of COVID Vaccine. “Embarrassed by an 84-year-old man’s revelation that he took 12 COVID-19 vaccines in 11 months, Madhepura district’s health officials have filed a police complaint against Brahmadev Mandal for cheating and disobedience of a public servant’s order.”

INDIVIDUALS – HEROES

Shelton Herald: Shelton senior center director becomes COVID test ‘lifeline’. “Doreen Laucella remains a lifeline for those homebound senior citizens seeking a COVID-19 test…. for those unable to leave their home, Laucella wants them to know she is a resource in attempting to get test kits to those who may be experiencing symptoms or who could have been a close contact to someone who has tested positive.”

K-12 EDUCATION

NBC Washington: Montgomery County Public Schools Drops COVID-19 Policy Days After Introducing It . “Montgomery County Public Schools will no longer consider virtual learning for every school that has 5% or more COVID-19 cases, but will instead make the decision for virtual learning on a case-by-case basis, the superintendent announced Friday. The news comes a day after the school system said online that more than 10,000 students and staff reported testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. MCPS went from having 11 schools in its ‘red’ category to 126.”

Chalkbeat New York: ‘Spread very thin’: NYC schools remain open during COVID surge, but learning is disrupted. “Far more school staff and students have reported testing positive for COVID since Dec. 24 than the rest of the school year combined. On Thursday alone, nearly 11,000 students and more than 2,200 staff reported testing positive, keeping them out of classrooms. On Friday, Chancellor David Banks acknowledged that staff attendance ‘has been lower than we wanted to see,’ but education department officials have refused to provide specific numbers.”

WWMT: Battle Creek Public Schools returns to virtual learning amid rising COVID-19 cases. “Battle Creek Public Schools students will not be in the classroom Monday morning. In a letter posted on the district website Thursday, Superintendent Kim Carter said the district was returning to remote learning Monday, Jan. 10. due to rising COVID-19 cases in the community.”

Reuters: French schools “overwhelmed” by COVID-19 and contact tracing. “Less than a week has gone by since French schools reopened after Christmas, but at the Jean Renoir high school in Boulogne-Billancourt, just outside of Paris, one in four teachers and nearly 50 pupils are already sick with COVID-19.”

Washington Post: ‘I’m barely clinging onto work’: Exhausted parents face another wave of school shutdowns. “Latoya Hamilton had just taken a job as a medical assistant when she got notice last week that her daughter’s school was going online temporarily. The single mother asked for time off. When it was denied, she did the only thing she could: quit. A lack of child care had prompted Hamilton to resign once before early in the pandemic, when she left her $26-an-hour job at NYU Langone Health to care for her three school-aged children. But this time is different. She feels more alone, she said, and unsure of how to make do, both logistically and financially. Federal assistance has expired, and she has depleted her savings and maxed out her credit cards.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

The Michigan Daily: ‘I feel disrespected overall by the administration’: UMich students face long waits, difficulties with quarantine and isolation policies. “When LSA freshman Ruide Xu — who lives in South Quadrangle residence hall — tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, his first thought was to contact the quarantine housing hotline — only to be met with no response after multiple calls and emails….Eventually, Xu said he was able to contact a representative from the U-M Division of Public Safety and Security but was informed that he was not on the quarantine housing list despite being enrolled as a student living on campus who tested positive for COVID-19.”

HEALTH

Boston 25 News: Could Friday’s snowstorm slow the spread of COVID-19?. “In the midst of an Omicron-fueled coronavirus surge that is pushing hospital capacities to the brink, could Friday’s big snowstorm be just what the doctor ordered? Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, thinks the snow came at the perfect time.”

RESEARCH

USA Today: COVID-19 boosters offer ‘potent’ protection against omicron, study says, recommending Pfizer and Moderna. “New evidence underscores the importance of boosters against omicron, with an mRNA vaccine booster offering the best protection against the fast-spreading variant. People who got either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series and then a booster achieved ‘potent’ neutralization against omicron, a paper published Thursday in the journal Cell found.”

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January 9, 2022 at 12:29AM
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Encyclopedia Britannica 13th Edition, Kazakhstan Flight Monitoring, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 8, 2022

Encyclopedia Britannica 13th Edition, Kazakhstan Flight Monitoring, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 8, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Found on Reddit: The 13th Edition of Encyclopedia Britannica just entered the public domain! I uploaded it to Archive.org.. “Three new volumes published in 1926 replaced the 12th edition as a supplement to the 11th edition. The new volumes, together with the reprinted 11th edition, constituted the 13th edition. The new volumes were numbered 29 to 31, the 29th volume of the 11th edition becoming the 32nd volume of the 13th edition.”

BellingCat: Launching an Open Source Flight Database for Kazakhstan in Wake of Protests. “Military planes from neighbouring Russia have also headed towards Kazakhstan in recent days as part of an agreement struck by the regional Collective Security Treaty Organisation to help regain order, something which can again be monitored and tracked by flight monitoring platforms. Bellingcat has thus launched an open source database of noteworthy flights to and from the country’s airports in a bid to better understand the recent and evolving dynamics in Kazakhstan. The database, entries for which start on January 3, is open to use and continues to be updated at the time of publication.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

FossBytes: Twitter Will Soon Allow You To Retweet With TikTok-Like Reaction Videos . “Twitter is testing a new limited feature available to its iOS users. The new Twitter feature lets users retweet another tweet and add their TikTok-like reaction video. Likewise, some Twitter app users on iOS can find a new option when they try to retweet a tweet.”

Popular Science: Android’s Recorder app makes it easy to post audio to social media. “After years of focusing on images, social media is expanding beyond photos and video. The new belles of the ball are apps like Clubhouse and features such as Twitter’s Spaces, where audio is king. But if you want to bring that voice-only style to posts on more traditional platforms like TikTok and Instagram, you’ll need to pair it with a video. This usually requires skill and access to video editing tools, but if you have an Android, Google just made things a little easier for you.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: Rolling Stones Altamont concert footage found in Library of Congress archives. “When Library of Congress film expert Mike Mashon heard about newly found reels of Rolling Stones concert footage, he thought they were copies from a show the band did in London in 1969…. The footage was not from the London concert that July. It was from the notorious show five months later at the Altamont Speedway near San Francisco, where one fan was killed, three others died and, many believe, the social revolution of the 1960s began its end.”

PCMag Australia: These Countries Ask Google to Remove the Most Content. “Every year, governments around the world ask Google to remove content from its many platforms on the web. The reasons are many, ranging from national security to defamation to copyright to fraud. But which countries make the most requests? According to Surfshark, Russia submitted 123,606 requests over the last decade—31,384 in 2020 alone—making it far and away the biggest content-removal requester. The most common stated reasons fall into the national security and copyright categories.”

NPR: Kicked off Facebook and Twitter, far-right groups lose online clout. “It’s been called the Great Deplatforming. In the hours and days after the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube kicked off then-President Donald Trump as well as many involved in planning the attack. Since then, far-right groups that had used the big tech platforms to spread lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election, stoke conspiracy theories and call for violence have been scrambling to find new homes on the internet.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Engadget: Illegal movie streaming service Popcorn Time shuts down. “Popcorn Time, the app that was once popular for making pirating movies as easy as watching Netflix, has shut down. Its original developers took the service down and abandoned the project merely a few days after it launched in 2014. But since the project was open source, other developers were able pick up where they left off, and it’s been killed and revived a few more times ever since. It remains to be seen whether Popcorn Time is now gone for good, but it looks like the biggest contributor to its most recent demise is the dwindling interest in the app.”

Reuters: Google faces probe in India after news publishers complain of unfair conditions. “India’s competition watchdog has ordered an investigation into Alphabet Inc’s Google following allegations from news publishers, saying its initial view was that the tech giant had broken some antitrust laws. In its order, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said Google dominates certain online search services in the country and may have imposed unfair conditions on news publishers.”

FBI: FBI Launches Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection. “The FBI announces the official launch of the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC), which took place on January 1, 2022. The LESDC provides a mechanism for law enforcement agencies to report suicides and attempted suicides of law enforcement personnel, as defined within the LESDC Act, for the purpose of compiling national statistics on these tragedies. As of January 1, 2022, law enforcement agencies can submit data to the LESDC about their current or former officers who die by or attempt suicide on that date and forward.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: A chatbot could help prevent eating disorders, new study finds. “A chatbot may help reduce the likelihood a person develops an eating disorder, according to a new study. For women at a high risk for an eating disorder, going through a dialogue with a bot developed by researchers reduced concern over body weight and shape — a factor that contributes to their risk.”

UGA Today: Leveraging social media during a disaster. “During a disaster, many people turn to social media seeking information. But communicating during disasters is challenging, especially using an interactive environment like social media where misinformation can spread easily. Now, University of Georgia researchers have developed a social media tool to better help local emergency managers disperse information to community members during a disaster.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 8, 2022 at 11:55PM
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Georgia Newspapers, Vancouver Newspapers, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, More: Inadvertently Newspapery Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 7, 2022

Georgia Newspapers, Vancouver Newspapers, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project, More: Inadvertently Newspapery Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Atlanta Journal digitized, searchable at GenealogyBank . “Don’t confuse this with the back issues of The Atlanta Constitution online at Newspapers.com. The Journal and The Constitution were two different newspapers until they merged in 2001.”

Vancouver Sun: This Week in History, 1890-2022: One of Vancouver’s pioneer newspapers goes online. “The Vancouver Daily News-Advertiser is all but forgotten today. But in pioneer Vancouver, it vied with The Vancouver World as the best source of local news…. The News-Advertiser has just been added to the website newspapers.com, which bills itself as ‘the largest online newspaper archive.'”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle: Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project launches new platform. “The Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project was launched in 2007 as part of this online revolution. After several expansions, the free website currently contains more than 9,000 digitized and searchable back issues from four local English-language Jewish newspapers: The Jewish Criterion (1895-1962), the American Jewish Outlook (1934-1962), the Jewish Chronicle (1962-2010) and the YM&WHA Weekly (1926-1976).”

Search Engine Land: Best Buy to sell search ads under its own in-house media company. “Best Buy has launched Best Buy Ads, its own in-house media company, the consumer electronics retailer announced Tuesday. Best Buy Ads offers paid search ads and sponsored product listings on Best Buy’s website, among other ad offerings.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 11 Free Movie Streaming Sites With No Sign Up Requirements. “There are countless streaming services like Netflix, Paramount+, and Disney+ that make it easy to watch movies, but you need to sign up and pay a monthly subscription fee. It can get expensive to access all those movie libraries. Fortunately, there are multiple streaming services that let you watch free movies legally… and you don’t even need to register!”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ThreatPost: Google Voice Authentication Scam Leaves Victims on the Hook. “The FBI is seeing so much activity around malicious Google Voice activity, where victims are associated with fraudulent virtual phone numbers, that it sent out an alert this week.”

CNET: Robocalls fuel jump in complaints to federal regulator. “In a biennial report to Congress published Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission said it received more than 5 million complaints about violations of rules tied to the Do Not Call Registry in fiscal year 2021, which ended Sept. 30. That’s up from about 4 million complaints received in fiscal 2020. In fiscal 2019, the agency received nearly 5.4 million complaints, according to FTC data.”

TechCrunch: FTC settles with data analytics firm after millions of Americans’ mortgage files exposed. “The Federal Trade Commission has approved a settlement with a mortgage data analytics firm for a 2019 security lapse that exposed millions of sensitive mortgage documents containing the private information of thousands of Americans.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: The battle to prevent another Jan. 6 features a new weapon: The algorithm. “For many Americans who witnessed the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6, the idea of mobs of people storming a bedrock of democracy was unthinkable. For the data scientists who watched it unfold, the reaction was a little different: We’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

The Register: Feeling virtuous with a good old paperback? Well, don’t. Switching to traditional media does not improve mood. “Those attempting a digital detox might settle down with a paper book in the assumption they are nurturing their well-being. But the benefits of traditional versus new media are not as clear as received wisdom leads us to believe. This is according to researchers that found steering clear of digital media such as games and social platforms and sticking to traditional, some would say more virtuous pastimes might not offer as much of a boost to well-being as many seem to think.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 8, 2022 at 03:35AM
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Friday CoronaBuzz, January 7, 2022: 53 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Friday CoronaBuzz, January 7, 2022: 53 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Just a reminder that while this is a digest newsletter, all CoronaBuzz items are individually indexed and tagged at https://rbfirehose.com/category/covid-19/ . I wrote an article explaining how to monitor by tag, category, or even search term: that’s at https://researchbuzz.me/2015/06/23/introducing-the-researchbuzz-firehose-how-to-use-it/ . Currently there are 12,698 items. Please get a booster shot. Please wear a mask when you’re inside away from home. Much love.

UPDATES

BuzzFeed News: The Latest Stage Of The Pandemic: Chaos. “You can get together safely with vaccinated loved ones over the holidays, but maybe you should reconsider. Omicron appears to be more infectious, but less deadly; though you should still worry about Delta, which is less infectious, but more deadly. Schools are still open — until they’re not, sometimes not even virtually. Social media is full of posts from friends either out partying or at home quarantining. Please still wear a mask in public, but not a cloth one, even though it’s still common to exercise in most gyms without one altogether. Rapid tests are useful but hard to find and maybe not so useful after all.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Fox 13: Utah tech executive resigns after anti-Semitic email rant. “The founder and chair of Entrata, a Silicon Slopes tech firm, has resigned his position after sending an email to a number of tech CEOs and Utah business and political leaders, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a plot by ‘the Jews’ to exterminate people.”

Ars Technica: Tracking Facebook connections between parent groups and vaccine misinfo. “Misinformation about the pandemic and the health measures that are effective against SARS-CoV-2 has been a significant problem in the US. It’s led to organized resistance against everything from mask use to vaccines and has undoubtedly ended up killing people. Plenty of factors have contributed to this surge of misinformation, but social media clearly helps enable its spread. While the companies behind major networks have taken some actions to limit the spread of misinformation, internal documents indicate that a lot more could be done.”

Poynter: No, Tylenol doesn’t ruin your ability to fight COVID-19. “As the highly transmissible omicron variant fuels a surge of COVID-19 cases across the country, treatment advice has ramped up on social media. Some users are warning against the use of Tylenol, with claims that it does more harm than good.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

BBC: Staff shortages in care industry: ‘It takes a strong person to do this job’. “Across Norfolk, there are currently 210 people in hospital who should be in a care setting. Of those 210, 120 people need home care and the remaining 90 require care home beds. The problem they, and those responsible for their welfare face, is a dire shortage of available care.”

WPRI: Outbreak hits Rhode Island hospital after COVID-positive staff called in to work. “Eleanor Slater Hospital in Cranston on Thursday reported 28 patients had tested positive for the virus as of that morning, totaling about 14% of the facility’s roughly 200 patients. The outbreak of cases comes in the wake of the state announcing it would align with federal guidance and permit COVID-positive health care workers to continue treating patients.”

Baltimore Sun: Staffs of Maryland hospitals, stressed and sickened with COVID-19, know ‘cavalry’ isn’t coming. “As COVID-19 hospitalizations climb into uncharted territory, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant, Maryland’s medical work force is increasingly diminished by illness and exposure, burnout and turnover. Gov. Larry Hogan has responded with pleas for people to get vaccinated and boosted and wear masks to spare the hospitals. The state opened several testing sites near hospitals so people would stop flooding emergency rooms with nonemergencies.”

HEALTH CARE – CAPACITY

WXPR: Wisconsin hospitals strain as confirmed number of daily COVID cases surpasses 11,000. “About 2,000 Wisconsinites are currently hospitalized with the virus. Statewide, 97 percent of intensive care beds and 98 percent of immediate care beds are full. Thirty-five Wisconsinites died from the virus Thursday.”

The Sun News: Horry hospital beds 90% full during omicron surge, leaving staff ‘emotionally drained’. “Hospital bed occupancy has reached 92.2% in Horry County, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC), and positive tests are being recorded at a higher rate than at most points throughout the pandemic. In total, 701 hospital beds are in Horry County, 646 of which were occupied as of Thursday. COVID-19 patients make up 91 of the beds across the county.”

OPB: Oregon announces long-awaited crisis care standards for hospitals as COVID-19 numbers rise. “The Oregon Health Authority has published new directions for hospitals in the event they need to triage patients and decide who gets urgent, life-saving care in a crisis — and who may not — when there aren’t enough critical resources, such as intensive care beds, available.”

Canton Repository: As COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations, Ohio hospital leaders say situation is worsening outside northern Ohio. “Ohio has broken its daily COVID-19 hospitalization record for nine days straight. As of Thursday, there were 6,540 Ohioans with the virus being treated in Ohio hospitals. The Buckeye State over the past two weeks is also seeing a rise in COVID-19 deaths. According to New York Times data, Ohio is only second in the nation after Wyoming in deaths per capita, at 1.09 deaths per 100,000 people.”

BBC: Covid in Scotland: NHS major incident warning as military help called in. “NHS Grampian could declare a major incident next week amid rising Covid cases, as extra military staff begin arriving to help three health boards. Grampian warned trigger points could be met as early as the end of next week amid an ‘exponential growth’ in cases.”

EVENTS / CANCELLATIONS

CNET: E3 2022 will be online-only again due to COVID. “E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is another event that will go online due to the recent increase in COVID-19 cases. This marks the third year the show won’t be held in person because of the pandemic.”

San Antonio Magazine: San Antonio’s MLK March Canceled as COVID-19 Cases Surge. “The Martin Luther King Jr. Commission voted late Thursday to cancel the march planned for Monday, Jan. 17, due to a rise in COVID-19 cases locally. Metro Health upgraded the local COVID-19 risk level to ‘severe’ earlier this week and over 2,300 new cases of the virus were reported in Bexar County on Thursday. The citywide interfaith worship service scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 16, also has been canceled.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

Hollywood Reporter: ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Production Paused After More Than 50 Test Positive for COVID-19 (Exclusive). “Sources say more than 50 members of the large production tested positive on Monday, which was the first day of work after the Christmas break. The Patrick Stewart-led series has one of television’s biggest crews, numbering more than 450 staffers. The infections impacted multiple zones, including cast in zone A.”

AFP: Leaked memo says rusty Qantas pilots making errors: report. “Some Qantas pilots are making mistakes as they return from long breaks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an internal memo reported by Australian media on Wednesday. Among the errors listed in Qantas pilot reports: starting take-off with the parking brake on and misreading the altitude as airspeed, said a report by the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s Age.”

Argus Leader: COVID-19 cases rising again at Smithfield plant as standards relax, union leader says. “United Food & Commercial Workers Union leader B.J. Motley told the Argus Leader that many workers at Smithfield have COVID-19 once again. The company has been doing daily testing as the Omicron variant rises, but monitor duties were cut, he said.”

UNITED STATES / UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

Associated Press: Navy blocked from acting against 35 COVID vaccine refusers. “A federal judge in Texas has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19.”

Reuters: U.S. FDA cuts gap for Moderna COVID-19 booster dose to five months. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it shortened the stipulated time between the primary series of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose by a month to at least five months for people aged 18 or above.”

Washington Post: White House, USPS finalizing plans to begin shipping coronavirus test kits to U.S. households. “The White House is finalizing details with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver 500 million coronavirus test kits to households across the country, according to four people familiar with the plans, kick-starting a key part of President Biden’s response to the raging omicron variant. The administration will launch a website allowing individuals to request the rapid tests, those people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private planning sessions. Officials aim to begin shipping the kits by mid-January.”

Reuters: State lawyers arguing against Biden vaccine mandates test positive for COVID-19. “Two officials presenting arguments on Friday to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to block vaccine mandates ordered by President Joe Biden’s administration have tested positive for COVID-19 and will make their cases remotely, their offices said. Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers and Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill will argue against the vaccination and testing requirements by phone, according to their offices.”

WORLD/COUNTRY GOVERNMENT

Nature: WHO chief Tedros looks guaranteed for re-election amid COVID pandemic. “Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), is all but ensured to lead the organization for a second term, from 2022 to 2027, because he is the only candidate in the race. As a matter of procedure, on 25 January, the WHO’s executive board is expected to nominate him for re-election in May.”

BBC: Covid: Deadly Omicron should not be called mild, warns WHO. “Recent studies suggest that Omicron is less likely to make people seriously ill than previous Covid variants. But the record number of people catching it has left health systems under severe pressure, said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. On Monday, the US recorded more than one million Covid cases in 24 hours.”

Bloomberg: Hong Kong birthday bash lands 30 officials in quarantine. “All of the approximate 100 guests at a celebration thrown for a representative of a mainland Chinese agency were being sent to the quarantine camp in Penny’s Bay, local media reported Friday. Some of Hong Kong’s most senior politicians — along with more than 20% of its new ‘patriots-only’ legislature — will be confined to 20-square-meter rooms with no wifi access, just as the government fights an outbreak of the infectious omicron variant.:

Cuba News: More than 90% of Cubans fully vaccinated against COVID-19. “The Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported this Monday that 91.6% of the island’s population has already received the complete COVID-19 vaccination scheme. The national director of Epidemiology, Dr. Francisco Durán, explained in his usual morning press conference that 9.673 million Cubans — out of a population of 11.2 million — have already received the three-dose scheme of one of the three nationally developed vaccines against the coronavirus.”

Reuters: Germany says boostered people need no COVID quarantine after contact. “Germany will exempt people who have received a booster shot against COVID-19 from quarantine requirements after contact with an infected person, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday.”

STATES / STATE GOVERNMENT

4WWL: Visitation for Louisiana-run prisons suspended indefinitely due to COVID. ” The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections has suspended prisoner visitation indefinitely starting Thursday. According to the DOC, the precautionary measure was made after the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. The department also suspended volunteers from entering any of the eight state-run prisons.”

WCAX: NH House votes to further limit governor’s COVID powers. “The New Hampshire House has voted to further limit the governor’s authority in future public health emergencies. Previous state law allowed the governor to declare a state of emergency and renew it every 21 days as long as he or she found it necessary to protect public safety.”

NBC LX: Which States Saw the Most COVID Deaths in 2021? America’s Least Vaccinated. “States with the U.S.’s lowest vaccination rates lost residents to COVID at a rate two to five times higher than states with high vaccination rates in 2021, according to an analysis of the country’s 458,000 COVID-related deaths and nearly 500 million vaccines administered this year.”

Fox 5 New York: NY reports highest single-day COVID deaths since mass vaccinations began. ” In New York, 130 people died due to COVID-19 on Wednesday, 62 of whom were from New York City, according to the latest data released by the state. The total is the largest number since mass vaccinations began.”

Everything Lubbock: Ten Texas Juvenile Justice Dept. employees test positive for COVID-19. “Ten employees at the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 24 hours. This comes after the Texas Juvenile Justice Department announced in December that 68 cases were active across its facilities (37 youth and 31 staff).”

Daily Beast: Ron DeSantis: I Let a Million Unused COVID Tests Expire in State Stockpile. “Amid a shortage of COVID-19 tests that left huge swaths of the U.S. facing bare pharmacy shelves, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis allowed a million testing kits to expire in a state stockpile. The head of Florida’s Department of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie made the shocking admission Thursday during a press conference alongside DeSantis. Guthrie said, ‘We had between 800,000 and a million Abbott test kits in our warehouse that did expire.'”

WESH: 80% of Florida will have caught COVID-19 by end of omicron wave, UF report says. “According to a new report from the University of Florida, most of the state’s population will become infected with coronavirus in the latest omicron wave. UF biostatisticians have been studying the way that the omicron variant behaves. They say data shows that omicron is twice as infectious as delta and spreads quicker, too.”

NBC Miami: Florida Department of Health Issues COVID-19 Testing Guidance That Contradicts CDC’s. “New COVID-19 testing guidance released by the Florida Department of Health Thursday is at odds with federal guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new guidance from the department of health comes days after Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the state is following a ‘sensible public health’ campaign that focuses on testing only at-risk patients and those showing symptoms of COVID-19.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

NBC DFW: COVID-19 Cases Spiking At Fort Worth Police, Fire Departments. “COVID-19 cases are on the rise among Fort Worth firefighters and police officers. and firefighters. The Fort Worth Fire Department reported that 116 of the department’s 927 firefighters are out on COVID-related leave. At the Fort Worth Police Department, 56 positive COVID-19 cases were reported on Dec. 30, an increase of 24 cases from the previous report on Dec. 17, the department said.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

BBC: Covid-19: Indian man has taken at least eight Covid jabs. “A man in India got jabbed with a Covid-19 vaccine at least eight times last year, a health official said. Brahmdeo Mandal, 65, has claimed that he received 11 doses of the vaccine in Bihar state.”

WFAA: After COVID coma, Cedar Hill school custodian finds renewed appreciation for job. “Looking for the greatest job in America? It can be found at Permenter Middle School in Cedar Hill. Just ask the custodian.”

Complex: DJ Kay Slay Hospitalized Due to COVID-19, Brother Shares Update on His Condition. “After Wack 100 posted a concerning message regarding DJ Kay Slay’s battle with COVID-19 earlier this week, his brother has offered an update on the 55-year-old DJ.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS – CELEBRITIES/FAMOUS

Digital Spy: James Corden’s Late Late Show taking break due to positive COVID-19 test. “The Late Late Show with James Corden is now a late-night television staple in the US, but the series will be taking a break over the next few days. Corden, who took over as The Late Late Show’s host back in 2015, confirmed the news on Instagram yesterday (January 6), telling followers that he has tested positive for COVID-19.”

INDIVIDUALS – DEATHS

Military Times: 4 reservists died of COVID-19 complications in a single week. “Four more deaths in the final days of 2021 capped off what have been the military’s deadliest months of the pandemic. After reporting a total of 14 deaths in 2020, the services jumped from 27 deaths overall in June to 86 total — making the 2021 toll for service members 72.”

K-12 EDUCATION

KRON: Some San Francisco teachers stage ‘sickout’ for COVID safety. ” Some San Francisco teachers are fed up with the school district saying they didn’t prepare for the expected surge the city is experiencing right now with omicron cases. So on Thursday, teachers in the union are holding a sickout — demanding safer work conditions. This is on top of the over 600 San Francisco teachers who actually called out sick yesterday due to symptoms or exposure to the virus.”

Michigan Daily: New-York disability advocacy group files restraining order against AAPS. “After Ann Arbor Public Schools resumed classes virtually on Wednesday, a disability-rights advocacy group asked U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy to stop Michigan school districts from cancelling in-person classes going forward. The Brain Injury Rights Group (BRIG) is a New York-based legal rights advocacy group that offers pro-bono services to individuals with disabilities.”

Mississippi Clarion-Ledger: Study: More parents are wary of sending their children back to school amid COVID-19 spike. “A nationwide study conducted by My eLearning World found 43% of parents overall said they’re more concerned about sending their child back to school due to the recent spike. About 51% of parents with vaccinated children and 35% of parents with unvaccinated children said their concerns have increased, the study states.”

HEALTH

CNBC: You should report your at-home Covid test results, experts say — here’s how. “Clinics and doctors’ offices are required by law to report Covid test results to state and local public health officials, but people who take at-home tests aren’t — and many of those test results don’t get reported. Now, many health experts are encouraging people to report positive at-home tests to their state’s public health agencies to help their area’s pandemic response planning, which includes guidelines for contact tracing and mask-wearing.”

New York Times: Can You Get the Flu and Covid at the Same Time?. “As flu season sets in and the Omicron variant continues to surge, how worried should we be? We spoke to experts to better understand what it could mean to test positive for both infections. Here’s what we learned.”

TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET

StateTech: The Pandemic Has Highlighted the Need for Accessible Technology in Government. “The coronavirus pandemic has changed a great deal about how state and local governments operate, with many agencies expanding digital services. However, with governments turning increasingly to remote work, virtual meetings and online service delivery, the pandemic has also shown the shortcomings of such solutions and technologies for those with disabilities.”

RESEARCH

NBC New York: Study Offers Reassurance on COVID Shots, Women’s Periods . “One of the first studies to track whether COVID-19 vaccination might affect women’s periods found a small and temporary change. Research published Wednesday tracked nearly 4,000 U.S. women through six menstrual cycles and on average, the next period after a shot started about a day later than usual. But there was no change in the number of days of menstrual bleeding after COVID-19 vaccination.”

Oregon State University: OSU study reveals how COVID shutdowns, restrictions affected countries’ electricity use. “A recent study from Oregon State University found that countries with stricter COVID-19 lockdowns and larger decreases in local travel early in the pandemic experienced steeper declines in electricity use than countries with more lax restrictions.”

Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Refrigeration — Cooling COVID-19 vaccines. “Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have retrofitted a commercial refrigeration container designed to ensure COVID-19 vaccines remain at ultra-low temperatures during long transport and while locally stored.”

CIDRAP: Lack of high school education predicts vaccine hesitancy. “A lack of a high school education was the most important predictor of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in 3,142 US counties, finds a study yesterday in the American Journal of Infection Control. And a research letter yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that 15 state lottery-based incentive programs didn’t significantly increase vaccination rates compared with 31 states without such programs.”

Cornell Chronicle: Faster checkouts could reduce virus spread at stores. “[Professor Jamol] Pender specializes in queuing theory – essentially the science of waiting in lines. His research has sought to ease traffic congestion, help driverless vehicles navigate and minimize the wait for rides at Disney World. So he turned his attention to a similar kind of queueing and set out to model the probability of how often pairs of shoppers might overlap in a store – an approach that could be used to predict the transmission of COVID-19, and guide strategies to reduce its spread.”

The Conversation: From delta to omicron, here’s how scientists know which coronavirus variants are circulating in the US. “How do scientists know what versions of the coronavirus are present? How quickly can they see which viral variants are making inroads in a population? Alexander Sundermann and Lee Harrison are epidemiologists who study novel approaches for outbreak detection. Here they explain how the genomic surveillance system works in the U.S. and why it’s important to know which virus variants are circulating.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Daily Beast: Paramedic Busted for Secret Vax Card Side Hustle. “David Hodges, 30, was assigned to a vaccination facility in Dover, according to the complaint. In early 2021, he ‘devised a plan to obtain COVID-19 vaccination cards for the purpose of selling the cards to individuals who did not receive the vaccine,’ states the filing.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 7, 2022 at 11:36PM
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January 6, LinkedIn, Mozilla, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 7, 2022

January 6, LinkedIn, Mozilla, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Smithsonian Magazine: Archiving the January 6 Insurrection for History. “Religion, curators point out, played a role in the insurrection. The [National Museum of American History], which recently announced the formation of its Center for the Understanding of Religion in American History, is collaborating with the University of Alabama’s Department of Religious Studies. A new website, ‘Uncivil Religion: January 6, 2021,’ features essays from scholars and archived digital materials from the insurrection. The site will catalog tweets, videos and FBI files to document how religious beliefs played a role in the attack.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: LinkedIn is launching interactive, Clubhouse-style audio events this month in beta; a video version will come this spring. “LinkedIn, now with more than 800 million people listing their professional profiles to build out their careers, is taking its next steps to get them to spend more time on the platform. The company is rolling out a new events platform, where it will be listing, hosting and marketing interactive, virtual live events.”

The Verge: Mozilla pauses accepting crypto donations following backlash. “Mozilla, the nonprofit organization that makes the Firefox web browser, announced Thursday that it would be pausing the ability to accept cryptocurrency donations following significant backlash spurred in part by a Mozilla founder, Jamie Zawinski (via Business Insider).”

FactCheck: Death of Betty White Leads to Swirl of Falsehoods on Social Media. “TV actress Betty White passed away at age 99 on Dec. 31. Following her passing, various falsehoods appeared on social media about White, including claims that she died after getting a COVID-19 booster shot and that she was the sister of former first lady Barbara Bush. White died of natural causes, according to her agent, and she had no siblings.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PR Newswire: A digital future for Black poetry at JMU, thanks to new $2 million grant (PRESS RELEASE). “The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded James Madison University $2 million over four and a half years to secure the digital future of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, the nation’s first academic center devoted to Black poetry. This generous grant will support the Center’s internationally recognized leadership and provide for archival description, digital preservation, and global access to an extensive archive of Furious Flower poetry and spoken word performance videos held by JMU Libraries Special Collections.”

Mashable: It’s time to rethink how you speak to young people about their bodies. “Elyse Myers has a message for the adults scrolling TikTok: Find better ways to address young people about their physical appearance. Or better yet, don’t talk about it at all. In a recent viral video, the 28-year-old creator shared her own struggles with negative body image after a passing comment made by an adult in seventh grade. It’s invited people, women in particular, to share stories about the staying power of an adult’s comments on a young person’s body, and is a lesson in how to appropriately teach kids about confidence and respect.”

ZDNet: Google Chrome rival Brave reports another big jump in users. “Brave, the Chromium-based and privacy-focused browser, now has 50 million monthly active users. That total means user numbers have more than doubled from the 24 million it had at the end of 2020.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: The VPN Is On Everybody’s Shitlist After Years Of Scammy Providers And Empty Promises . “As privacy scandals and hacks grew over the last decade, VPNs quickly emerged as a sort of mystical panacea, that could protect you from all harm on the internet. Of course, this resulted in a flood of VPN competitors who were outright scams, made misleading statements about what data is collected, or failed to protect consumer data. The end result is a new trend in the press where about once a month we get a new story informing you that you probably don’t actually need a VPN.” Gack, I can’t imagine connecting to public or even semi-public networks (hotel WiFi) without using a VPN.

Daily Sabah: 40 arrested in Twitch corruption probe in Turkey. “Demirören News Agency (DHA) reported that some suspects had collaborated with streamers who were aware that the bit payments were made using stolen credit cards and took their share. Bits cannot be converted to actual money but the scammers are accused of getting payment in actual money from streamers in exchange of huge troves of bits they sent. The scheme was allegedly used for money laundering by criminal groups.”

Sky News: Mafia fugitive arrested after being spotted on Google Street View in Spain. “A Sicilian mafia fugitive who was on the run for nearly 20 years was caught after being spotted on Google Street View. Gioacchino Gammino, 61, was tracked down to Galapagar in Spain – a town near Madrid – after a picture showed a man resembling him chatting outside a fruit shop.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Business Insider: QAnon networks are evading Twitter’s crackdown on disinformation to pump out pro-Capitol-riot propaganda, study says. “Networks of QAnon accounts are using unusual tactics to evade Twitter’s ban on disinformation and flood the platform with conspiracy theories, a study shared with Insider found.”

North Carolina State University: This is How Students Can Learn Problem-Solving Skills in Social Studies. “A new study led by a researcher from North Carolina State University offers lessons on how social studies teachers could use computational thinking and computer-based resources to analyze primary source data, such as economic information, maps or historical documents. The findings suggest that these approaches advance not only computational thinking, but also student understanding of social studies concepts.”

World Economic Forum: 1,500 endangered languages could disappear by the end of the century. “There are 7,000 documented languages currently spoken across the world, but half of them could be endangered, according to a new study. It is predicted that 1,500 known languages may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) analyzed thousands of languages to identify factors that put endangered ones at risk. The findings highlight a link between higher levels of schooling and language loss, as regionally dominant languages taught in class often overshadow indigenous tongues.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 7, 2022 at 08:54PM
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